My good friend Katie came over this morning with her first goose egg of the season (she has Embden geese) for me to put in the incubator for her. She loves her geese. She is also the duck keeper among us. She sells a lot of duck eggs to people who bake and to people who have allergies to chicken eggs. Katie loves her ducks. Katie loves all ducks. Me, I like baby ducks for about the first 4 days when they are cute, then I hate them. I keep a small flock of Tufted Roman geese and a pair of Mandarin ducks, and that is it for me and waterfowl! Every year one of my teachers will get ahold of some duck eggs from somewhere, and hatch out a bunch and then bring them to the farm, and I will moan and roll my eyes and take them in, and then foist them off to new homes as soon as I can!

I was greeted once again this morning by a peeping incubator with a lovely tray of little warm fluffy balls of new life. I don’t think I will ever get tired of this. Yes, of course there was one who bailed out the back of the tray and I had to retrieve it with the paint stir stick (see yesterday’s rant), but the chick had the top part of the shell stuck on it’s little bottom like a little brown turtle, so it was too cute for me to be mad at.

I will never in my life cease to be fascinated by a chicken egg. Each one is like its own self-contained little space ship. They can be laid on almost surface, left out on a chilly night, kept on the counter for over a week, packed and shipped through the postal service to just about any destination. Then taken and placed in just about any kind of unit that will hold a temperature of around 100 degrees and about 30% humidity, rocked back and fourth, and in exactly 21 days, produce a fluffy little bird that is up and ready to go in about an hour! Think about it- what other organic product can you find that is porous – it can allow air in, yet so sterile that it can be placed in 100 degrees for the better part of a month and not go bad. It still blows me away every time!

I have had much success over the years hatching out quail (they take 18 days to hatch), turkey, pheasant, duck, geese and even 1 peacock egg (they all take 28 days to hatch). But the crowning achievement was a pair of Emu eggs that were hatched two years ago. They took 55 days at a temperature of 97 degrees and 20% humidity. We were surprised ourselves when we first saw them!

Emu babies

For years I use to run what I called a “natural hatchery” that consisted of 8 to 10 broody hens that would set absolutely anything you shoved under them. It was not uncommon to see one of these hens with up to 5 different species of young, in all shapes and sizes, at their heels at the same time. I think the best memory I have is of a guinea hen, who was almost prehistoric looking, proudly protecting her nest box with the cutest little gray-green gosling peeping out from under her. Two very different types of birds, one common goal – hatching!

I had this wonderful system in place with these broody hens for years, and ran at a very high hatch rate, and derived much joy from it, until one horrible fire season a few years ago, when the Malibu fires drove a huge number of predators into our area, who then discovered our beautiful little freerange farm. We were wiped out in two nights. We were heartbroken. All of the broody hens that escaped are now in safe pens for their own sakes, and my idyllic set up is no more. I hatch all my eggs in the Sportsman incubator now, but it’s just not the same. I get good results, but still miss the joy of seeing those dedicated broody hens with their motley clutches in tow.

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